Chapter 10 - The Game of Survival
The dark vinyl of the body bag hit the concrete floor with a heavy, dead slap. Dr. Vance bent down, his hands trembling as he straightened the edges of the shroud, preparing to lift Gabriel’s lower legs onto the rubberized surface.
Matilda knew that the moment they touched Gabriel’s skin, the game was over. The doctor would feel the warmth returning to his calves; Carmine would notice the muscle tone that had replaced the limp flaccidity of a corpse. There were only seconds left before the illusion shattered, and when it did, Carmine’s gun would clear its holster before Gabriel could sit upright.
She had to create a distraction. She had to buy the king his seconds.
Slowly, Matilda released her grip on Gabriel’s fingers, giving his hand one final, deliberate squeeze of reassurance before sliding her arm free from beneath the white sheet. She stood up straight, backing away from the table with her hands raised, her face pale and submissive.
"I'm sorry," she sobbed, stumbling backward toward the stainless-steel prep counter. "I'm sorry, Mr. Carmine. I'll go. I won't cause any trouble."
Carmine smirked, satisfied that the weak girl had broken. He turned his back to her, stepping up to the head of the examination table, reaching down to grab the top corners of the white sheet to pull it down over Gabriel’s face. "Grab his feet, Vance," Carmine ordered, his voice echoing off the tile. "Let's get this done."
Matilda backed into the prep counter. Her hand slipped behind her back, her fingers brushing against the cold, smooth handle of a heavy stainless-steel surgical tray loaded with metal speculums, clamps, and heavy forceps. Her heart was beating so hard she could feel it in her teeth. She looked at Gabriel.
Beneath his dark, tousled hair, Gabriel’s left eyelid twitched. His jaw set into a hard, merciless line. The pale pallor of death was retreating, replaced by the dark, furious flush of a predator who had awakened inside his own grave.
With a sudden, violent motion, Matilda swept her arm across the counter.
CRASH!
The heavy stainless-steel tray went flying, striking the concrete floor with a deafening, echoing clatter. Scalpels, steel clamps, and glass specimen jars shattered against the tiles, spraying shards and metal across the room.
"What the hell—!" Carmine roared, spinning around furiously, his hand dropping instinctively toward the nine-millimeter pistol tucked inside his suit jacket.
In that singular second of diverted attention, the silence of the room was ripped apart by a sound that made Dr. Vance drop to his knees in terror: the deep, ragged, volcanic gasp of a dead man drawing air back into his lungs.
Carmine spun back toward the table, his eyes widening in pure horror.
Gabriel Falcone was sitting up.
The white sheet fell away from his massive, scarred chest, revealing the heavy bandages and the dark ink of the tattoos coiling across his shoulders. His dark eyes were open—wide, black, and burning with a lethal, absolute fury that seemed to suck all the warmth out of the room. He did not look like a man who had survived an ambush; he looked like a devil that had climbed out of the earth to claim what was owed.
Before Carmine’s hand could clear the fabric of his coat, Gabriel’s left arm surged forward like a piston. His massive, calloused hand clamped around Carmine’s throat with the force of an industrial vice, lifting the two-hundred-pound underboss off the floor until the toes of his Italian leather shoes barely brushed the bloodstained tiles.
Carmine gagged, his eyes bulging, his fingers frantically tearing at Gabriel’s wrist, but the grip was unbreakable.
Gabriel leaned forward, his face inches from his treacherous lieutenant, his voice a low, gravelly rasp that shook the foundations of the room.
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"You should have made sure, Carmine," Gabriel whispered.
Behind them, pressed against the counter with a broken scalpel gripped tightly in her hand, Matilda Higgins watched the king reclaim his throne—and knew that neither of them would ever be cold again.
